Eyestrain: What to do about eye fatigue?

5:30 PM: when your eyes send you a signal you ignore

5:30 PM. You close your eyes for a second — just a second. That slight burning sensation behind your eyelids, that feeling that your eyeballs are too big for their sockets, that sudden inability to focus on anything. You squint at the screen. You tilt your head as if a different angle would fix everything.

You know this moment. Maybe it happens at 4 PM, maybe at 7 PM after an evening on Netflix. No matter the time — you know exactly what it is.

It's not in your head — it's on your plate

Most of us attribute this fatigue to the screen itself. Too much light. Too many hours. We tell ourselves we should take breaks. And it's true — breaks help. But there's another part of the story that nobody told you.

According to the Vision Council, 65% of adults report symptoms of digital eye fatigue. In France, 1 in 4 people spends more than 5 hours a day with their eyes glued to a screen. This is no longer an exception — it's the norm. And our eyes haven't evolved for this.

What science is beginning to confirm is that tired eyes aren't just eyes that have worked too hard. They're often eyes that lack fuel.

The fact that will change your perspective

Here's something most people are completely unaware of — and once you know it, you can't forget it.

The retina — that thin tissue at the back of your eye that transforms light into images — contains the highest concentration of DHA in the entire human body. About 60% of the polyunsaturated fatty acids in the retina are DHA, an omega-3 fatty acid. Your brain is rightfully proud of its DHA content — but your retina is literally made of it.

Imagine building a house and realizing that 60% of its structure depends on a single material — a material that your body doesn't produce on its own and that your modern diet provides less and less of.

It's no coincidence that populations who consume little fatty fish report more visual discomfort. It's also no coincidence that your eyes seem to give out exactly when your diet, between fast food and overloaded days, is the least varied it's ever been.

What this article will provide

In the following sections, we'll explore together — without jargon, without commercial speech — why eyes are among the most micronutrient-demanding organs in the human body, which key nutrients science recognizes as essential to their comfort, and how to understand what you're really putting in your body when you choose a dietary supplement.

No miraculous promises. Just what we know — solidly, honestly — about how nutrition supports your eyes daily. Because the first step in caring for something is understanding how it works.

Your eyes have a 10,000-year memory

Before screens, before glasses, before even writing — eyes were already humanity's most precious survival tool. And without knowing it, our ancestors nourished them exactly as they needed.

Roman sailors and Inuit fishermen: an unlabeled pharmacy

Roman legionaries on maritime campaigns brought dried oysters — not for gastronomic refinement, but because collective experience had established a simple truth: those who ate them saw better at night and tired less. They knew nothing about zinc. They just knew it worked.

On the other side of the world, Inuit populations of the Far North ate fatty fish at almost every meal — salmon, herring, mackerel, halibut. Studies conducted in the 20th century noted that these populations had remarkably low rates of chronic dry eye. Coincidence? Not really. Their diet was one of the richest in the world in long-chain omega-3 fatty acids. Their retinas, without them knowing it, were bathed in exactly what they needed.

And then there's the carrot. That persistent idea that eating carrots improves night vision? It's an invention of the British Royal Air Force during World War II. Their pilots were shooting down enemy planes in the dark thanks to a secret new radar — and to hide this technology from the Germans, official propaganda attributed their successes to... heroic consumption of carrots. The myth persisted. Carrots do contain beta-carotene — a precursor to vitamin A, a real ally for vision. The propaganda wasn't entirely wrong, it just omitted the details.

Rete, luteus, DHA: the words that tell the story

The word retina comes from the Latin rete — the net, the network. Renaissance anatomists, observing this thin membrane at the back of the eye, saw a delicate canvas, a mesh of cells so tight that it captured light like a net catches fish. A beautiful image for a tissue that transforms photons into thought.

The lutein draws its name from the Latin luteus — yellow. It gave its name to the macula lutea, literally "the yellow spot": that tiny point in the center of the retina responsible for all our sharp vision, allowing us to read, recognize a face, distinguish colors. A yellow spot a few millimeters in size. The center of everything.

As for DHA — docosahexaenoic acid — it was isolated and named in the 1930s by biochemists seeking to understand why certain marine fats behaved so differently from others. They didn't yet know that this compound would constitute up to 50% of the fatty acids in retinal photoreceptor membranes. The retina, that patient net waiting for light, is literally woven from DHA.

What's changed between them and us

Our ancestors ate oysters, fatty fish, colorful root vegetables — not through nutritional wisdom, but through necessity and tradition. Their retinas effortlessly received what they needed.

Today, we eat differently. Less wild fatty fish, fewer organ meats, fewer vegetables with intense pigments. And our eyes spend ten, twelve, sometimes fourteen hours a day staring at artificial light sources that evolution didn't anticipate. The retina — that millennial network, that precious yellow spot — still awaits the same nutrients. It no longer receives them in the same way.

This is where the real question begins: how do we fill what our modern plate no longer provides?

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What your eyes are trying to tell you when nutrients are missing

There's something strange about deficiencies: they don't hurt. They settle in quietly, silently, like a light dimming by a tenth of a degree each day. You don't notice anything — until the day you realize you're squinting to read what was perfectly legible six months ago.

When the light dims and contrasts disappear

Here's a fascinating mechanism that few people know about. Your eyes contain two types of photosensitive cells: cones, which work in bright light, and rods, which take over in dimly lit environments. These rods depend on a molecule they cannot manufacture themselves: rhodopsin. And rhodopsin needs vitamin A to regenerate after each exposure to light.

When vitamin A reserves diminish, this process slows down. The result? Increasing difficulty distinguishing contrasts in a dimly lit restaurant, in an underground parking lot, in a poorly lit hallway. Not sudden blindness — a gradual, imperceptible loss that resembles normal aging until a nutritional cause is found.

What if you're among the at-risk profiles?

Here are four portraits. See if one resembles you.

• You work remotely and your screen is on eight hours or more per day. The visual overload is real — and your nutritional intake rarely keeps pace.
• You are vegetarian or vegan. Preformed vitamin A (retinol) is found almost exclusively in animal products. Bioavailable zinc as well. And DHA? Practically absent from a diet without fish or supplemented algae.
• You take hormonal contraception. Several studies have documented that oral contraceptives increase urinary excretion of zinc — a mineral your eyes need to function properly.
• You're over 50. Intestinal absorption of zinc and vitamin A declines with age — regardless of what you eat. The same meal nourishes a 55-year-old body less effectively than a 30-year-old one.

Why even a "balanced" diet is no longer always enough

The answer is in the soil, in factories, and in habits. European agricultural lands have lost a significant portion of their zinc content over the past fifty years — meaning the vegetables you buy today contain less than those your parents ate. Meanwhile, ultra-processed food destroys a significant portion of the fat-soluble vitamins (A, E) originally present in foods. And consumption of fatty fish — sardines, mackerel, herring — has dropped by nearly 40% in France since 1980. That's the main dietary source of long-chain omega-3s that has collapsed in a single generation.

It's not a question of poor dietary will. It's a matter of context: the nutritional environment has changed faster than our habits can compensate for. And what science confirms — recognized at the European level, as part of a varied and balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle — is that vitamin A contributes to the maintenance of normal vision and that zinc contributes to the maintenance of normal vision. Two nutrients. Two recognized functions. And for many of us, two intakes that deserve attention.

What the label doesn't tell you: the criteria that truly make a difference

Not all dietary supplements are equal. Yet, faced with two similarly designed bottles, it's difficult to know which to choose. A few concrete benchmarks change everything.

The TOTOX score: the indicator few brands display

Omega-3s are oils. And oils go rancid. The TOTOX score — for "total oxidation" — measures the degree of oxidation in a fish oil. A score above 26 indicates a degraded oil, whose benefits are compromised and taste often acrid. Oils from wild Alaskan fish naturally have low TOTOX scores, thanks to cold-water fishing and a short processing chain. It's a marker of real freshness — not a marketing argument.

Vitamin A and Zinc: the comfort zone, quantified

Vitamin A is fat-soluble: it accumulates in the liver. The tolerable upper limit established by EFSA for adults is 3,000 μg per day. A quality formulation contains around 800 μg — about a quarter of this threshold. No need to worry, as long as you follow the indicated doses.

For Zinc, the point of attention is different: starting at 40 mg per day, zinc begins to interfere with copper absorption. Well-designed formulations remain well below this threshold, with a daily dose designed for effectiveness without unbalancing other minerals.

Swiss manufacturing, real traceability

EXELIS ranges are manufactured in Switzerland according to GMP and HACCP standards — two frameworks that govern production quality at every stage, from raw material to final capsule. Each batch undergoes independent testing by third-party laboratories, with certificates of analysis available upon request. Non-GMO. Without superfluous excipients.

It's these details — TOTOX, thoughtful dosing, independent certification, traceable sourcing — that allow you to move from a generic product to a supplement you can truly trust.

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At ProFeel Life, we built EXELIS on a simple conviction: before selling a supplement, we must educate. That's why each formula is born from a dialogue with micronutrition therapists, and each batch is controlled by independent third parties — because a serious Swiss laboratory doesn't just make promises, it verifies them.

~ ProFeel Life, EXELIS laboratory, Collombey, Valais